The road to Eldenheim took two days.
Sylva rode in silence the entire way, sitting in the back of a supply wagon with a knight's cloak wrapped around her shoulders. It was far too large — the sleeves swallowed her hands — but it was warm, and it was the first kindness anyone had shown her in longer than she could clearly remember.
The knights didn't speak to her much. They weren't cruel about it. They would glance at her sometimes, then look quickly away, and she knew what they were feeling. Or rather, what they weren't. Flux moved through all living things like a current — even untrained people sensed it faintly in those around them, a kind of warmth, a presence. When they looked at Sylva, there was almost nothing there.
She kept her head down and watched the road.
Prince Nasu rode at the front with the knight-captain, speaking in a low voice about the flux beast, the corrupted forest, the merchants. He didn't look back once. But strangely, Sylva didn't feel ignored. There was something in the way he carried himself — unhurried, unbothered — that made his silence feel less like indifference and more like he simply hadn't decided what came next yet.
―――
On the second morning the road curved around a rocky hillside, and Sylva finally saw it.
She forgot to breathe.
Eldenheim rose from the mountainside like something the mountain itself had decided to become. Massive black stone walls stretched across the cliffs, reinforced with battlements that caught the early light and threw it back hard. Crimson banners snapped in the wind, each bearing the empire's crest — a blazing sword encircled by flame. The city spread outward across the valley below: smithies, training yards, stone homes packed close together, smoke rising from a dozen chimneys. Even from this distance she could hear the rhythmic clang of metal on metal.
A kingdom built on fire. Everything about it said so.
The wagon rolled through the outer gates. Guards snapped to attention as the knights passed. People stepped aside in the streets, some bowing as Nasu rode by. He acknowledged none of it. He rode straight for the castle and dismounted in the inner courtyard without ceremony, handing his reins to a waiting groom.
Sylva climbed down from the wagon. The cobblestones felt solid beneath her feet in a way the forest floor hadn't. Too solid. Too permanent. Like stepping into a place that already knew it didn't need her.
She didn't belong here. She was certain of it.
―――
"So this is the girl."
Sylva turned.
A boy stood a few paces away, watching her with the kind of stillness that looked deliberate. He was older than Nasu — fifteen, maybe — and where Nasu seemed to take up space carelessly, this one occupied his precisely. Lighter hair, straight posture, a training sword at his hip. His eyes moved over her with calm, unhurried assessment.
Sylva looked down immediately. "…Sorry."
"For what?" he said.
She didn't answer. There wasn't one.
Nasu walked over, brushing road dust from his gloves. "Kaelen."
The older boy glanced at him. "You brought her here."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"She would've died in the forest."
"That's not what I meant." Kaelen's gaze returned to Sylva. His expression wasn't contemptuous. It was something almost worse — measured, like he was already calculating the problem she represented. "I can barely sense any flux from her."
"I know," Nasu said.
"And?"
"And nothing."
Kaelen stared at him. Whatever he might have said next was interrupted.
"So you've returned."
The voice crossed the courtyard like a change in weather. Every knight straightened. Even the grooms went still.
Sylva turned slowly.
The man at the top of the castle steps was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in armor bearing Eldenheim's crest. Dark hair shot through with gray framed a face that had been hardened by something longer and deeper than age alone. He descended the steps without hurry, and the courtyard seemed to compress around him as he moved — not from fear exactly, but from the weight of a presence that had never learned to be small.
King Aldric of Eldenheim.
His eyes moved to Nasu first. Then to Sylva. They didn't linger. They didn't miss anything either.
Nasu stepped forward and bowed briefly. "Father. The missing merchants were killed by a flux beast. Corruption spreading from the outer forest — I'd recommend a patrol sweep before it reaches the trade roads."
Aldric nodded once. "And the girl."
Not a question. A notation.
"I found her in the forest. She has nowhere to go."
Silence. Aldric studied Sylva for several seconds. She felt it the way she always felt it — that moment when someone reached out with their senses and found almost nothing. The faint flicker of her flux, barely enough to register.
"She has almost none," he said.
"I know," Nasu said again.
"You know." Something unreadable moved through Aldric's voice. His gaze shifted to his son — not warm, not cold, but evaluating in the way it always was with this particular son. Always weighing. "And yet you brought her here."
"Yes."
"Why."
Nasu met his father's eyes without flinching. "Because I wanted to."
A few knights exchanged glances. Even Kaelen went very still.
Aldric held his son's gaze for a long moment. Then he turned and began climbing the stairs.
"Very well," he said, without looking back. "If the prince has chosen to bring someone into this castle, we will see what becomes of it." He paused on the third step. "But understand this."
He looked back — not at Sylva. At Nasu.
"The world does not reward weakness."
He continued up the steps and was gone.
The courtyard exhaled.
Sylva stood very still. She had been certain — absolutely certain — that she would be turned away. She had already started building the wall she always built when something was about to be taken.
But she was still standing in the courtyard.
Nasu turned toward her. "Well," he said. "Welcome to Eldenheim."
"…Why?" she said quietly.
"Why what?"
She didn't know how to finish it. Why any of this. Why you. Why me. Why does it feel like you're not even surprised by any of it.
Nasu looked at her for a moment. Then he almost smiled — not the full thing, just the edge of it — and walked inside.
After a moment, Sylva followed.